**2. Application of ViVACE® to different industrial sectors and circular initiatives**

The general elements that compose ViVACE® and the methods used to build it are deeply described in [28]. **Figure 1** shows a generic "stage" of the tool, representing the material flows in a company or a part of a specific industrial process (the graphical

**Figure 1.** *Representation of a generic stage according to ViVACE® tool [28].*

*An Innovative Visualization Tool to Boost and Monitor Circular Economy: An Overview of Its… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98761*

**Figure 2.**

*Methodological steps, based on ViVACE® tool, to support the transition to a CE.*

width is proportional to the actual flow) and completed with the measurement of some transversal KPIs.

The tool was already used to analyze circular case studies available in the literature, with the aim to show its potential and versatility [29]. The lack of accessible and quantitative information limits the application of the ViVACE® tool, which has been only qualitatively set. However, without a quantitative analysis of those case studies, for example, with the use of relevant KPIs, it is not possible to compare the improvements generated by the "linear" scenario or by different circular opportunities.

On the contrary, the authors' approach is based on the quantification ensured by the use of ViVACE® tool. In particular, the typical methodology used to address and support an effective transition to a CE is based on the steps shown in **Figure 2**. These methodological steps have already been implemented in different industrial contexts, providing interesting results.

This Section describes the application fields in which the ViVACE® tool has been implemented. For each application, which varies a lot for sector and type of action, the context is described, highlighting the barriers and some limiting aspects for the development of circular actions. Moreover, the implementation of ViVACE® tool and its main results are reported to understand its contribution in accelerating the transition to a CE in the considered sectors.

#### **2.1 Phosphorus management**

Phosphorus (P) is a main raw material for fertilizer production: with its irreplaceable properties, it ensures proper plant growth, providing food directly for human consumption or for animal growth, becoming human food in a second term. It derives that P represents a crucial building block for food security. Due to its importance, but also its crucial issues, P is listed as a critical raw material for the EU economy [30]. The criticality is given by two main priority aspects to be considered for P management in Europe: P is a non-renewable resource since a time misbalance exists between P geological cycle (million years) and the anthropic use cycle (daily-annual); moreover, primary P mines are concentrated in few areas (China, Morocco, USA), mostly not belonging to EU, which imports more than 90% of its P demand [31, 32]. For these reasons, the sustainable use of nutrients, including P, is a priority for the recent EU strategies [7, 8].

On the other hand, along the anthropic use cycle, P is used with very low efficiency since there are P losses at every step of its life cycle, but it remains available in certain waste flows, from which it can be recovered and reused, according to the CE paradigm. Along the food value chain, there are three main waste flows characterized by high concentrations of P: animal manure, urban wastewater, and sewage sludge, and food processing waste flows, such as slaughters, other solid waste, and wastewater [33]. More than 30 technological processes, some of them commercially viable, have been already developed to recover P from several types of waste flows (e.g., wastewater, sludge, and ashes) in different forms (e.g., struvite, calcium phosphate) [34]. Although many opportunities for P recovery and reuse are available at the industrial level, the full-scale implementation of these technologies is still limited. Moreover, the presence of P in certain industrial waste flows is often perceived as an issue than an opportunity [35].

The EU project Prosumer, funded by EIT Climate KIC (2020) and coordinated by the authors, tackled the question about what elements are missing and necessary to unlock a wide diffusion of P recovery technologies at the industrial level. It emerged that the companies have not suitable tools and methods to transfer the interdisciplinary know-how developed by the scientific community in their contexts, translating it into quantitative information to support their decisionmaking process about P recovery. Consequently, within the project Prosumer, the authors provided an industry-oriented methodology, consisting of four main steps, to guide the companies in the identification of the most suitable P management pathway, according to their interests and business strategies. In this methodology, the ViVACE® tool has a fundamental role in providing structured data about P flows along with the industrial processes and in the waste streams, becoming useful inputs for other tools to evaluate the economic feasibility of potential investments in P recovery and other relevant KPIs. The Prosumer methodology and its application to an Italian food company are well described in [36]. **Figure 3** shows the setting of the ViVACE® tool representative of the annual quantity of P contained in the material flows both in the food processing and wastewater treatment plant. In this first application, it is shown the "first draft" of the tool, set with common software and manually, that means without using the official graphics, as in the following applications, with the aim to understand how it can be constructed. To fill the visualization tool, the annual quantities of P were evaluated, considering as stages different steps within the food processing and the wastewater treatment and analyzing the inputs and outputs of P contained in several flows (raw materials and other ingredients, final products, solid waste, wastewater, sewage sludge, etc.) within the boundaries of the company. The annual P flows (kg/year) were reported as a proportion of the maximum value that corresponds to the quantity of P that enters the food processing.

The setting of the ViVACE® tool allowed the evaluation of significant KPIs to measure the process and highlighted potential opportunities to manage P according to a CE. **Table 1** summarizes the relevant environmental and economic KPIs obtained from the application.

*An Innovative Visualization Tool to Boost and Monitor Circular Economy: An Overview of Its… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98761*


#### **Table 1.**

*KPIs used to assess the sustainability of P removal/recycling from wastewater.*

According to the economic feasibility study, fed by the collected quantitative data about P flows, it derived that, although the cost for P recovery covers a minor part of the wastewater disposal costs, the price for the selling of the recovered P, to make the investment sustainable, is greater than the cost of primary P rocks. This and other barriers to effectively shift to a more sustainable P management must still be addressed, as analyzed by recent studies [34, 35]. Nevertheless, with the applied methodology, the companies can have all the quantitative information to unlock, at least, an interest in evaluating and exploiting the opportunity to recover P from their waste.

#### **2.2 Plastics sector**

Plastic has been identified as a priority area in the new European CE Action Plan [7] due to its high complexity in the management of its waste and its negative impact if it improperly reaches the environment. Although its irreplaceable features, such as ease of processing, low weight and cost, and hygiene, the typical linear management of this material is no longer sustainable, above all when it is used for applications characterized by a very short service life, for example, the single-use plastics and the packaging. These specific functions are affected by a high production of waste, characterized by a low recycling rate in comparison to other materials (e.g., paper, metals, glass).

There are two major aspects that affect and limit a greater recycling rate for plastics. The first issue is related to the wide variety of polymers included in the typical waste flow to be managed. The second limiting aspect is linked to the downgrading of recycled plastic properties. Plastic waste flows containing only one type of polymer are quite easy to recycle. Every recycling process is studied and implemented to work with a specific polymer as an input material. In case the input

**Figure 4.** *Current Italian plastic waste management system and share of the main material flows.*

flow is not contaminated by other types of polymer, the recycled plastics has good properties, even if a certain grade of degradation occurs.

In this scenario, the current Italian plastic waste management system is characterized by the described two critical issues. A national consortium, created to optimize the collection, recovery, and recycling of plastic packaging, manages the entire plastic waste system. It provides indications for different actors to manage several activities in the waste management process [37]. The territorial utility is the only one that can collect and carry plastic materials from urban and industrial waste. The utility does a first sorting phase from the plastic bin, sending the suitable materials (mainly packaging) to the following stages (50–60% of the entire flow). The remaining part, consisting of non-recyclable plastics, is sent to energy recovery (preferred option) or landfill (last option), according to the national consortium indications [38]. The flow selected for recycling is sent to a secondary selection center that has the technology to sort materials by polymer and by color. In this phase, another part of plastics waste (about 7–8%) is lost due to the sorting system inefficiency [39]. It derives that only 42–43% of the total amount of material collected in the urban plastic bin is sold to recyclers. Not all of this quantity is effectively recycled due to another inefficiency in the recycling process, which depends on the technological development of the specific plant. **Figure 4** shows the schematic view of the Italian plastic waste management system.

The current trend to eliminate the problems of plastics management is to shift to a "plastic free" model. However, for some applications, the replacement of plastics with other materials may not be the most sustainable solution, at least in the short term, considering environmental or economic aspects, or both of them [40]. A more promising solution, above all in the short term, could be shifting to an effective CE for plastics, capturing the maximum value of the resource through improved after-use plastic management [41]. With the aim to increase the collection, sorting, and recycling efficiency of the current waste management system, to minimize waste generation and resource use according to the CE paradigm, the authors' team designed, implemented, and assessed two innovative circular initiatives for plastics, one applied to sports events (named #CORRIPULITO) and the second applied to the food value chain (named RICIRCOLA – Plastic Waste Free).

#### *2.2.1 #CORRIPULITO: a sustainable model to manage plastic waste at sport events*

The organization of sports events can generate both positive and negative effects on the host territory. A high amount of waste generated during these events, if

*An Innovative Visualization Tool to Boost and Monitor Circular Economy: An Overview of Its… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98761*

not properly managed, can determine a negative environmental impact, above all plastics waste [42]. To reduce the environmental impact of sports events, the #CORRIPULITO initiative was designed and implemented in a small marathon to improve the management of plastic waste in comparison to the previous editions of the same event. In this specific context, four types of plastics were sorted and collected to increase the recovery efficiency of the management system, activating dedicated reverse logistics. A detailed description of the design and implementation of #CORRIPULITO is in [43].

The implementation of the ViVACE® tool allowed the assessment of the sustainability of the initiative, and particularly of the environmental and economic pillars, through the collection of useful and systematized data and their elaboration to evaluate significant KPIs. Also, the detailed steps for the implementation of the

#### **Figure 5.**

*Setting of the ViVACE® tool for the #CORRIPULITO initiative and its comparison to the previous editions of the sport event [43].*

#### *Product Life Cycle - Opportunities for Digital and Sustainable Transformation*

**Figure 6.**

*Evaluation of environmental KPIs representative of plastic waste management [43].*

ViVACE® tool to #CORRIPULITO are provided in [43]. **Figures 5** and **6** show the main quantitative results of the sustainability assessment, respectively as the setting of the visualization tool and evaluation of the selected environmental KPIs, comparing two scenarios (previous editions of the considered sport event and #CORRIPULITO).

## *2.2.2 RICIRCOLA: plastic waste free - an innovative management model for plastic food packaging*

Among plastic materials, PET (polyethylene terephthalate) has become the most promising packaging material for food products, and above all for beverages, due to its excellent features, such as high clarity and good barrier properties towards moisture and oxygen, and also for its high potential for reuse after recycling process also for food contact applications [44, 45]. Currently, PET bottles, collected and send to the recycling process, are more than 50% of the consumed bottles, which is a very high rate in comparison to other disposed plastics. Bottles are not the only packaging in PET. PET trays (about 1/3 than PET bottle consumption, by weight – PETcore data) are widespread in food packaging applications, as they preserve and keep food fresh longer. PET trays contain almost 50% rPET, but they are typically separated from bottle flow and are very difficult to be recycled to a third life [46]. The consequence is a great loss of PET tray value after the food consumption phase.

With the aim to recover the value of plastic food trays, a new model for the management of plastic packaging in the food supply chain is proposed, based on the concepts of CE. The main idea at the basis of the new model, called "RICIRCOLA - Plastic Waste Free" is represented in **Figure 7**. It consists of the design of innovative plastic packaging, made with a mono-polymer (PET), having specific characteristics that allow: (i) the complete traceability from production to post-consumption phase through the insertion of a specific tracking element, particularly an RFID tag; (ii) the increase of collection and sorting efficiency through the involvement of the consumer who receives a fee if he brings back the after-use packaging at the collecting station, set up at the retailer; (iii) a simplified reverse logistics, ensured through the dedicated collection and sorting system that allows a single-polymer waste flow, with the aim to facilitate the recycling at the end-oflife, enlarging the applications of the recycled plastics. To assure all these features, an integrated value chain that comprises packaging the manufacturer, food brand owners, retailer, consumers, and the plastic recycler, was established, following a life-cycle thinking approach.

*An Innovative Visualization Tool to Boost and Monitor Circular Economy: An Overview of Its… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98761*

**Figure 7.**

*Schematic framework of the novel management system for plastic packaging.*

The proposed model was tested and validated in Emilia-Romagna (Italy) for two months (October–November 2020), redesigning the packaging for two food products distributed in three supermarkets, ensuring a fee of 0.20 €/tray for the engaged consumer. The collected plastics were sent to the recycler to manufacture other food trays.

**Figure 8** shows the final set of the ViVACE® tool comparing three different scenarios: (i) the current management system of trays in Italy, (ii) the results obtained with the initiative "RICIRCOLA – Plastic Waste Free" after two months of experimentation, and (iii) the projection of the results after a year of implementation of the proposed model. The detailed description of the model and its results, assessed with the use of ViVACE®, is out of the scope of this chapter and is the subject of a dedicated paper under submission. However, it is possible to extract some relevant and macro quantitative information to compare the "RICIRCOLA - Plastic Waste Free" model to the current Italian waste management system. The results highlight that, in comparison to the current situation, considering the same quantity of collected plastics after the consumption phase, the innovative model "RICIRCOLA - Plastic Waste" should increase the plastic waste recovery efficiency of about +120%. The projection of the results achieved during the experimentation, after one year of practice, demonstrates that it could be possible to increase the recycled plastic quantity by about +126%, reduce the waste sent to landfill (−57%) and replace the 36% of virgin plastics with secondary raw materials. It derives that this novel model can really contribute to the achievement of the target for plastic recycling (55%), set by the European Strategy for plastics in 2030.

#### **2.3 Textile/footwear sector**

Due to the current production, distribution, and consumption system, the fashion sector is one of the most impactful since it is still completely based on a linear
